Some new designs of user equipment (UEs)—such as smart phones, tablet computers, and laptop computers—include two or more radio access technologies (“RATs”) that enable the devices to couple to different radio access networks. Examples of radio access networks include Third Generation (G-3), Fourth Generation (G-4), Long Term Evolution (LTE), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Wideband CDMA (WCDMA), Global System for Mobile (GSM), and Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS). UEs may also include two or more radio-frequency (RF) communication circuits or “RF resources” to provide users with access to separate networks via the two or more RATs.
When a UE includes a plurality of RATs, each RAT on the device may utilize a different RF resource to communicate with its associated network at any time. For example, a first RAT (e.g., a LTE RAT) may use a first transceiver to transmit to a LTE base station and a second RAT (e.g., a UMTS RAT) uses a second transceiver to transmit to a UMTS base station. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there exists a need for further improvements in the technology. One such need is for improvement is network selection.